Meet the saviors of racing's repute
 

Derby coverage was on the front page of both the New York Times and Washington Post this morning. The Times had a 1 1/3 page spread. Grand acclaim for the unassuming connections.

Not that anyone reads physical newspapers anymore, and there are better digital measures of publicity. But this looks like the most compellingly favorable event to to come along in a while.

Well of course no one reads physical newspapers anymore (except the DRF).

Look at how expensive they are!

No, not "except the DRF". I haven't bought a paper copy of the DRF in years. Like everything else today, it's available online.

BBC World News last night had the Kentucky Derby as its premier global sports story on both its radio and television broadcast.

The very thought of radio coverage of the Derby turns my mind to a cold beer and a good book.

Actually, my wife & I do, every morning.

Well, every morning except Saturday because - to keep the price low, they stopped delivering on Saturday.

Then they shrunk the paper every day by removing 1 section.

Then they combined 2 sections into 1.

Then they cut the pages in each section by half.

Then they raised the price from $25 a month to $45 per month.

We told them, "WE QUIT."

They offered us a deal - $13 a month forever.
We went for it.

Then in month 4 they charged us $47 and refused to refund it. We charged it back.

Now we've been back at the $13 per month level for over a year.

BTW, the delivery is very close to perfect. (Like 2 missed papers per year.)

Sorry.
Pushed my button.

And for the thread drift.

I’d like to chime in too. I get most of my news the old-fashioned way: a real, paper newspaper that one can read without popups jumping out at you; and later on, use to protect your floors from spilt paint. As well as whack the dog with when he’s bad, although my wife and I have no pets. It’s called the Villages Daily Sun. Every day it gets plunked down on my doorstep and I go rambling out and retrieve it. It’s delivered 364 days a year and a subscription costs $84 per year. It’s the only newspaper in the country whose circulation has increased over the past 20 years, went from 20k to 45k. This is when most of the country’s local papers circulation dropped an average of 50%. It’s gotten thicker too since I first came here in 2012.

It is a local paper but it’s not your typical neighborhood-type one. Yes it has local trivia tidbits from the over 4,000 clubs that meet here every week, including the bridge club and the village's idiot club. It has AP stories for covering national stuff as well as local news with a dozen or so writers on their staff. It covers the pro sports pretty well especially pro golf (I live in the middle of 711 holes of golf, no mini-golf though).

I should mention that I do read the NY Post daily email, and I do click for the entire article occasionally, but the popups drive me crazy so that’s not often.